A dribble of drabbles,

...a modicum of memories, a smidgen of smart-talkin.'

It's Friday morning, 4/21/23, and it's raining.  I'm walking hallway laps around our Atrium building.  Each lap is roughly 124 of my steps in length, and I define a step as one right and left stride.  

                                 Our apartment is most of the way down this hallway on the right. 

I'm not walking at the rate I do when I hike around town.  There, my usual cadence is 52 steps (defined the same way as above) per minute.  In here, I am more laid back and I find that I usually do 49 steps per minute or about 47 if I'm strolling.    

I was thinking as I walked this morning, about my blogpost that is due out in a few days. I have a bunch of pictures that I could use to develop one, but I wasn't in the mood to work on one of my usual sort of posts. I felt that I should do something a little different this week. And then, I had an idea. 

But first, some background...  

I retired in 2010.  Oh, I worked for a while at a very rewarding part-time job, and I volunteered at our local hospital during the same period, something I enjoyed tremendously, but I was out of the mainstream working world. I discovered during this time, possibly because I had so much free time, that I had an urge to write. 

I wrote a number of essays then, bits of reminiscing, stories of experiences; that sort of thing. I probably knocked out more than a dozen of them before the urge to write tapered off a bit.  However, I remember having a very hard time showing them to anyone. 

I had taken one intro-level writing class while at N.M.U., half a century ago now, but have never had any other training or experience. I was afraid that my writing would make me look foolish to anyone I allowed to read it.  Happily, I overcame that reluctance and now realize that I don't care if someone else wants to criticize my efforts. Especially now. Heck, I'm old. I can blame my lack of talent on any number of excuses if I want to.   

Several months ago, I read a novel by an English author, Jeffrey Archer.  At the back of the book, he had included a little something extra; a story that consisted of just 100 words. I enjoyed it, and decided to try my hand at writing one as well.  

I discovered that such a story; one that consists of exactly 100 words, is called a drabble. Since I started, I've written 33 of them and decided that a few are worth sharing. That is what I intend to give you today in lieu of my usual fare. 

So, here we go.  I hope you like them.    

 #4 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the professor, “You find yourselves today in my class, Writing the Short Story. Surrounding us on every side is the University of Limerick, one of the finest places in all of Ireland.  

Are you ready?  You’ll do a lot of writing here and we’ll start now with a very short story; a ‘drabble’, consisting of exactly 100 words. 

Your goal is to write a good drabble, 

Surpass lesser writers, such rabble. 

You must be precise! 

Just 50 words, twice, 

Your reward will be immeasure-abble.

May your words be less and your content be more. Get started.”    

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#5 

“Arthur, huh?” said the woman at the bar. "That’s no good. Neither is Art. Geez, Chum, that’s too bad. Not interested.” 

“Huh? Sure. I been with plenty of guys like you, but I gotta have ‘em with four letter names like Jose, Bill, Chad or Andy. Yours just don’t excite me.”   

As closing time approached, she began to worry.  

Finally, a guy with CHET written on his shirt pocket sat down.    

Relieved, she smiled at him and said, “Hi Chet, I’m Peggy.”  

“Peggy, huh?” said the guy. "That’s no good. Neither is Peg.  Geez, Doll, that’s too bad. Not interested."   

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#29 

Come children; listen to my story about a faraway land of mountains, clouds, and sea. 

The mountains there stand straight and tall, and clouds cover their tops like a wooly blanket. The sea rocks itself all around. 

The clouds give of themselves to the mountains. They nourish small, wild, happy rivers, which rumble-tumble down the steeps to the sea, sometimes flinging themselves into the air in their joy. They carry with them offerings from the mountains, which nourish the sea. 

  

The sea accepts their gifts, and in its pleasure, sends the purest part of itself up to nourish the clouds. 

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This last one, as you saw, included a picture.  I took that photo while on our cruise through Doubtful Sound last October. I named that area in my mind, The Land of Vertical Rivers.

I'm so used to including lots of pictures in my posts, I feel compelled to add a few more.  Here are just a few that I like. 

In Tui Glen

Also in Tui Glen. The second tree is a chestnut, the others are plane trees, a type of sycamore. These pictures were taken just a few days ago.  The leaves are starting to fall. 

For this next picture, I had taped a pair of solar-viewing glasses over my phone's lens.  This was taken at the height of the partial solar eclipse that happened here yesterday, 4/20/23.  Unfortunately for us viewing from Auckland, only 0.061 percent of the sun would appear to be covered by the Moon. I was hoping to be able to see at least an outline of the Moon as it just 'kissed' the Sun.  I could have had it been clear out. The very heavy cloud cover during the event made that impossible. 

I had used an Auckland website to verify the moment of 'greatest' coverage and I took this shot at that point. Even though it doesn't show what I had hoped that it would, I like the photo. It sort of reminds me of a Van Gogh painting, sort of, if you squint a certain way, and have had a couple of beers.    

That's it for this week.  A little different I know, but I needed a change.  

I know that most of you are working.  You don't have the free time that I do, but may I make a suggestion? Try writing a drabble.  You'll be amazed as you tell your story at how quickly the words add up.  Part of the trick is to decide which ones to weed out. You might find that it's fun.  

I'll give you one more to encourage you.  This one documents an experience we kids had one summer afternoon in our backyard. Unfortunately, I got into trouble for this chemistry experiment. I was the oldest of our tribe and 'should have known better!'

#24 

The kids who were visiting next door taught us, precisely.

“Add the ammonia three times. Rinse the purple ‘mud’ with water after each mixing. Then let it dry.”

I bought iodine crystals and ammonia water at the CO-OP.  

We each made some, mixing the ingredients in jar lids and using paper napkins as filters to rinse the mud. 

Finally, breathlessly, we moved back, anticipation high as they dried.   

Wayne, the youngest, must have carelessly handled his lid. The first explosion happened under his thumbnail. The napkins and even the lids detonated soon after.  

 Our nitrogen triiodide production was summarily halted.   

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If you're curious, here is an article about this stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_triiodide                 -djf